The Archers to get 'darker and bigger'

The acting editor of The Archers said the Ruth and David plotline would get 'darker and bigger'. Photograph: Gary Moyes/BBC

As if Nigel Pargetter's fatal rooftop fall was not dramatic enough, fans of The Archers are in for more shocking storylines in the hands of EastEnders' boss John Yorke.

Controller of BBC drama production and acting editor of The Archers, Yorke said that the BBC Radio 4 show will get "darker and bigger".

Recent plots have seen Adam Macy hospitalised in a violent attack and David and Ruth Archer subjected to violent phone threats, while the vicar's daughter had an affair with a married man, which could tear her family apart.

"You have to put your characters in jeopardy because it makes you love them more," Yorke said in an interview in the latest issue of Radio Times.

"My thing has always been that every episode needs to have an arc and listeners should be left wanting more. You need a cliffhanger to drive the story in a new direction."

Yorke, who oversees EastEnders, Holby City, Casualty and Doctors in his BBC drama role, and is a former executive producer of the Albert Square soap, took over The Archers in March, for four months, while editor Vanessa Whitburn went on long-service leave.

Asked whether he had brought the philosophy of the BBC1 soap to Ambridge, Yorke told the magazine: "The fundamentals of character and storyline being vital is the same. But The Archers moves at a slower pace than EastEnders, which is absolutely right. It's an extraordinarily important programme to a lot of people and you don't want to break it.

"It needs to follow the rhythms of everyday life, but you have to balance that against the demands of drama that things happen. I want it to feel like The Archers, but be as good as it can be."

On the Ruth and David Archer plotline, Yorke said: "There's definitely more to come on that story. It's going to get darker and bigger. Shows are always about triumph over adversity.

"But you can only afford to do something like this about once a year. Otherwise it would get implausible. The strength of The Archers is in its detail. The seasonal rhythms of agriculture, the floral competitions – those things are vital."

Pargetter, played by Graham Seed for almost 30 years, fell from his roof in a special half-hour 60th-anniversary episode of the Archers, the world's longest running radio soap opera, in January 2011. Whitburn, who is due to return in July, had promised listeners the storyline would "shake Ambridge to the core". It turns out they ain't heard nothing yet.

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